


Burn So Completely

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders' Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-05
Updated: 2007-04-05
Packaged: 2019-01-19 22:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12419874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Have I found the boundary between love and hate? Have I really? Because, to me, that line isn't so thin. [ A different take on the flashback Pensieve scene in OotP, not an AU. ]





	1. Prologue: There's Only This

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

  
Author's notes: 1  


* * *

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, nothing at all….but we all can dream, right?

Summary: A different take on the flashback in the Pensieve in OotP. Not an AU, really, since the way I plan to write it is as a situation that _could_ be true. As far as I know, nothing in canon really disputes it. Feel free to correct me.

**There’s Only This**

 

_and you’re on fire when he’s near you_

_you’re on fire when he speaks_

_you’re on fire burning at these mysteries_

 

It was one of those moments when time seemed to pause in its flow, allowing moments to freeze figuratively.

Lily Evans stared, stunned, at James Potter, trying to convince herself that he hadn’t just said what she thought she’d heard. 

“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” she found herself saying, voice dripping with distaste and irritation. 

The expression on James’s face shifted slightly, so subtly that she wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t known him so well.

“You make me _SICK!_ ”

And then she was storming away, fuming, from the entire scene, from Snape, from the Marauders, from James’s thinly veiled proposals. 

At one point, she really thought she might be sick. 

 

 

James frowned, tugging at the collar of his shirt as he entered the Great Hall. 

“It’s just bad luck, Prongs,” Sirius was saying.

Not for the first time, James envied Sirius’s lack of bad luck, with girls anyway. He studied his best friend’s careless hair, trying to remember the last time he’d seen him with a brush in his hand. It was guys like Sirius, he knew, that made it tough for guys like himself to have a chance. 

“Nah,” he replied, shaking his head, “she’ll never come ‘round. I think it’s time I move on, ya know?”

Sirius hesitated, then shrugged. “There are plenty of girls who’d go out with you.”

“Like who?” James asked curiously, though he had been purposely ignoring the looks he’d been getting lately from Rose Thompson, a Ravenclaw a year below them. 

“Ah, most of the Hufflepuff girls are fair game,” Sirius replied, inciting a laugh from James, “and even my cousin has been saying she wouldn’t mind seeing more of you once we’re a bit older.”

“Bellatrix?” James asked, confused and a little alarmed, picturing the cold-eyed Slytherin. 

“No!” Sirius exclaimed, chuckling, but also looking a little alarmed. “Andromeda.”

“ _Oh,_ ” James said, more than a little relieved and also pleased, thinking of the elder Black girl who had graduated the year before with the easy smile, long hair, and warmer heart than her two sisters combined. Andromeda was the kind of girl he’d place in the same category as Lily: Light Years Out Of My League. “That’d be a little too much like dating you, Sirius.”

There was a pause.

“Ew,” Sirius finally said. “On second thought, stay away from my family.”

James laughed as he took his usual seat at the Gryffindor table. “Deal.”

“What’s a deal?” Remus asked curiously, glancing up at the two of them.

“Prongs and I aren’t going to date,” Sirius answered promptly, flashing a set of pearly-whites in a mischievous grin.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Peter said, “but isn’t it cruel to hand him his second rejection of the day, Padfoot?”

Remus chuckled, while James scowled. 

“Honestly, James,” Remus said, shaking his head, “what were you thinking, anyway? You know Lily has a crush on that Seeker from Ravenclaw.”

“Yeah,” James said, but he didn’t look at any of them. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

As the topic changed and he reached for a roll, his eyes drifted down the table to where Lily was sitting. Their gazes met as he found her staring at him, and he searched valiantly through the intoxicating emerald for some semblance of fondness. He found only various indulgences of emotions he didn’t know the names of and a heat crept up his neck. 

She smirked. 

“I’ll be right back,” James said hurriedly, interrupting the conversation that had been going on around him. “Gotta use the loo.” 

He darted past Lily’s empty seat at the table and out of the Great Hall, his feet making quiet scuffs against the ground as he moved away from the din of voices. 

 

_This has got to stop_ , Lily thought, but she found herself doing a lot less listening to her head these days. 

_I’m not doing this anymore_ , she told herself as she came up behind James in the corridor, his head turning this way and that as if he was looking for something, or someone. 

_I’ll just tell him that this is over,_ she said in her mind. She put a hand out, grabbed his arm and turned him towards her, electricity shooting up from the union and throughout her body. 

And before she knew what had happened, he had backed her up against the wall, one hand holding her cheek and the other squeezing her hand as their lips met once, twice, and then again and again and again. 

Her hands were in his hair, fingers moving through the silken locks and tugging fiercely from time to time. 

“Guess the squid was busy today?” he gasped when he pulled back, before simply moving his attention to her cheek, her jawline, her throat, her…neck…

Practically panting, Lily wrapped her arms around him, pulling him as close as she could. “Meeting him…later…” she managed to get out, before tugging him back up to her lips. 

Dimly she heard footsteps approaching and, panicking, she pushed James away from her roughly and sprinted down the corridor, running a hand through her mussed up hair distractedly as she went.

He stared after her, wondering how it was possible to feel so happy and yet so sad at the same time. 

Glaring at the first year who had come looking for the loo, in the process interrupting a very pleasant snogging session, he stomped off back to dinner, his thoughts a mess.

 

As Lily tried half-heartedly to fall asleep that night, her lips bruised and her thoughts jumbled, the only thing she could picture in her mind was the expression James had briefly revealed when she had turned him down by the lake. No matter what she did, whenever she closed her eyes, all she saw was that hurt look, haunting her down to her core. 

She didn’t know that not too far away, James lay awake thinking of the venom in her voice as she cruelly dismissed him and wondered, not for the first time, if he could ever rise above it. 

**Hmm..it’s a mess, I know, but I sort of planned it to be that way. Drabble, kinda. And, it’s just a prologue, too. Review please, I’d like to know what you think, whether it’s worth continuing or worth editing.**

 

 

**Oh and the lyrics are Switchfoot’s!**


	2. Slide Into Me

**Slide Into Me**

 

 

_I guess you don’t need it_

_I guess you don’t want me to repeat it_

_But everything I have to give_

_I’ll give to you_

 

“I can’t focus,” I groaned, slamming my Charms textbook shut and pushing it away from me.

Marlene glanced up and smiled. “Potter on the brain?”

I glared. “ _No_.”

Marlene chuckled. “Only joking, calm down.”

It was comments like that one that kept me from spilling my secret to her. I’d never hear the end of it if I did. Plus, Marlene is my best friend, and she has a good heart, but the girl can’t help but gossip to anyone and everyone. 

Frowning, I glanced out the window of the Library, forehead creased. Besides, after today, there won’t be anything to tell.

“It’s just that it’s so nice outside,” I said, continuing to stare out the window.

“It is nice, isn’t it?”

Both of us started at the deep voice and turned to look up at the speaker curiously. 

“Hey, Will,” we chorused, prompting an amused smile from the tall Seeker.

“Studying hard, I see,” William Lovegood commented, eyeing my discarded textbook. 

“Or hardly studying,” I quipped dryly, making him laugh. 

“I think Lily’s got it,” Marlene said with a grin, flipping her long, dark hair over her shoulder. 

“As far as I see…Lily’s got everything except a date to Hogsmeade,” Will said, his blue eyes meeting my own green ones. 

“I think you’re right, Will,” Marlene said wickedly, observing me blush. “But I think a lot of people could say the same thing about you.”

“Oh,” Will said, shaking his head, “see, I’m pretty sure I’m going with a pretty redhead from Gryffindor.” 

“I don’t think you’ve asked her yet,” Marlene contradicted and laughed when my cheeks flamed even warmer, my eyes firmly planted on the table.

“If you two want to just have some time to yourselves,” I said pseudo-dramatically, pushing back my chair and standing, “that can be arranged.”

In a flash, Will was down on one knee, grabbing one of my hands and holding it firmly. “Go to Hogsmeade with me?”

I blinked down at him, taking in that famous Lovegood grin.

 “You’re insane,” I said flatly, but then I smiled. “But okay.”

Will let out a loud whoop, drawing a harsh glare from the librarian, threw his arms around me in a bear hug and then ran out the door, calling over his shoulder. “I’ll meet you at eleven!”

Bright red, I sat down again, studiously ignoring Marlene’s smirk. 

“Shut up,” I grumbled, toying with a lock of flaming crimson. 

Marlene stuck her tongue out and slowly returned back to her work. 

A flash of dark hair and light reflecting on spectacles caught my eye; I turned to view a dark figure disappearing between two columns of books.

“I’ll be right back,” I said quickly, rising and practically jogging away before Marlene could respond. 

 

“James?” I called tentatively in a half-whisper, peering around a dark corner suspiciously. 

There was a faint brushing against my neck, a gentle caressing of lips to skin, and I couldn’t help but smile, turning to face….nothing.

“James?” I asked again, confused. I put a hand to my neck, rubbing the spot where I was certain I’d felt him kissing me. 

Silence, then arms sliding around me gently, sensations finding home on my cheek, my forehead, and ever-so-briefly on my lips.

“James,” I breathed, my heart pounding with both fright and excitement.

My eyes closed of their own accord and then jumped open again as the kiss deepened, finding James in front of me. I pulled back, heaving a huge breath.

“H-how did you do that?” I asked, staring.

“Magic,” he whispered, moving to return his attention to my neck.

I hesitated, and in that brief second, his lips were caressing the side of my throat gently and I leaned back against the bookshelf to steady myself.

“Why did you say yes to Lovegood?” he asked suddenly, his voice a quiet breath on my neck traveling up to my ear.

“I…I needed a date,” I said, my hands resting lightly on his chest as if they couldn’t decide to push him away or pull him closer. I was always pushing. 

“Go with me,” he whispered, and I could feel him smiling as he kissed my cheek.

There was a long silence as I debated what to say. 

“What were you playing at yesterday? Out by the lake? Asking me out in front of all those people?” 

I waited for his answer, certain he could hear my heart pounding. 

He pulled back to meet my gaze, his golden eyes earnest.

“I want people to know about us,” he said. “I don’t want to be a secret anymore.”

“James,” I said, “I like Will a lot.”

“You don’t,” he said, “or else it’d be him you’d be snogging.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, James. This has to stop.”

We stared at each other, my words mingling between us and molding together, forming a wall. 

And then, and I would reflect on this later as I tried to fall asleep, James Potter laughed at me, _laughed in my face_ , and said cheerfully, “Whatever you want, _Evans_.”

I watched him strode away and wondered, shocked, why I felt like crying. 

And I wondered, staring off into space for the rest of the day, why I felt like I had only hurt myself during that conversation.

 And finally, I wondered why his final word to me had cut so very, very deeply, seemingly beyond healing.

**This story is going to switch perspectives a lot. I’m tweaking it around a bit. I’m still working on Fade Me Down, though, so please check it out, I think it’s much better than this.**

 

**Review please!! It will make me smile a lotttt!**

**Oh and this song is Ray Lamontague!**


	3. Just Lay It All Down

_just lay it all down_

_put your face into my neck_

_and let it fall out_

**missy** **higgins**

 

 

 

“Look at Evans and Lovegood,” Sirius said, his voice tinged with disbelief.

“No, thanks,” James muttered under his breath, stabbing viciously at the piece of chicken on his plate with his fork. Remus glanced over and smiled to himself, shaking his head. 

Peter looked up eagerly and chuckled. “Look at him trying to work the moves.”

Giving in, James finally chanced a glance in the direction of the happy couple. He frowned at the arm slung casually around the redhead’s shoulder, frowned even deeper at the closeness between the two bodies under scrutiny. 

“Next thing you know, she won’t just be sitting with them, she’ll be cheering for the, too,” James grumbled, chewing slowly. 

Remus scoffed. “You know Lily’s one of the most loyal Gryffindors in the house.” 

James hesitated, then allowed himself a small smile. He did know. He’d seen her yelling at the ref on his behalf, even before they’d been friends. And her scarf, adorned with the blazing red and gold of the lion, was wrapped proudly around her neck at the moment, despite the surrounding enmity. 

Too bad she hadn’t been very loyal to him. 

 

“Will, stop,” Lily protested, trying to smile. “I can feed myself.”

Will’s fellow teammates laughed at their Captain’s mock-offended look. Lily took the moment to scoot a little further away, feeling better once she had a little more room to breathe. 

“Potter,” Will said abruptly, his tone significantly less warm. 

Lily glanced up, startled to find the Gryffindor Chaser standing nearby. She blinked, a sense of excitement thrumming its way through her. She _knew_ he had been watching. Hmm. She was fairly certain James would win were her to begin a jealous argument or fight with Will, but she didn’t want that to happen. 

James gave Will the universal ‘nod’ exchanged between guys, before moving on. Confused, Lily studied his back.

“Amberle?” she heard him ask as he stopped next to the pretty sixth year prefect. 

Lily dimly noted that Will was talking to her again, but she was staring down the line of benches. 

“Wanna go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?”

“Sure!” 

“Right then,” James said, and Lily could hear the grin in his voice, “I’ll meet you out in front Saturday morning?”

Lily’s mouth hung open as James came back towards her on his way out. Their eyes met, and he winked, grinning. “Hey, Evans.”

She scowled. “I know what you’re doing and it won’t work, James. And my name is _Lily_.”

“Whatever you say.” And then he laughed, like he had the day before, and it made her even angrier and while she had known she possessed the ability to make James jealous, the realization that it was mutual…..

Well, it terrified her. 

 

 

**Short and sweet. It's not a very deep story, for which I apologize, but I'm working on some things that I need to if I want FMD to be any good, which I really, desperately hope it will be.**

**Also, to whoever nominated me for the Hourglass Awards, if you're reading this, thank you very, very much. I'm very...honored to even be considered.**

**Thank you, as always, for reading. <3**


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